A Kind of Woman

by Helen Burko

  “You’re still afraid of the KGB?”

  “Yes, although here the KGB men are less dangerous.”

  “Are you glad to have left your birthplace?” he asked with a double aim.

  “Definitely! That is no longer my home but one enormous prison!”

  “An enormous prison…” he repeated and then changed the subject. “Let’s go and find a Jewish committee! There we’ll be able to obtain some food and shelter, and they’ll help us go on.”

  “I don’t like committees!” she objected strenuously. “In my opinion, we have to take our fate into our own hands again as we have done until now. I must confess, my education has kept me away from committees, and I hate begging.”

  “Nonsense.” He smiled. “We’ll call it whatever you want. Call it charity, but those committees can save us a great deal of trouble. They are an expression of our solidarity in distress throughout the ages.”

  She laughed. “We should, though, find some kind of temporary shelter so we can rest first. We should go to a village near Warsaw, because here we won’t find anything. After we have rested, we’ll continue our journey.”

  “But I think that the committee, and only it, can help us. There we can also find out how to continue our journey. I’d like us to go to America, to my warm home, as soon as possible, although I think it will take us a long time to obtain the papers needed to permit us to travel there together.”

  Finally, he succeeded in convincing her to go to the Jewish committee. On the way there, a terrible thought came to him. He didn’t know why he thought it, but he asked her, “Tell me… I want to know…”

  She stopped and looked at him. “Ask, if you can’t postpone it until later.”

  “No, I can’t. I have to free myself from an idea that suddenly came to me.”

  “So… What is it? You are so full of ideas.” She laughed.

  “What if we go there and I find my Doris and Lillian? What will we do? After all, there is such a possibility in an era of madness.”

  “Ha, ha.” She laughed with an obvious effort. “How emotional you are! You’re hallucinating! Perhaps you are ill, my dear.” She put her hand on his forehead.

  “Don’t mock me!” he said angrily. “Answer my question! You must understand that I want to be practical… So answer me!”

  “What should I tell you?”

  “Tell me how I should act in such an event and how you would act in such a case.”

  “I would free you.”

  “Without resentment?”

  “Without resentment. What would you do if I leave you?”

  “Would you have the strength to do that?”

  “If it were necessary, without hesitating.”

  “Would you do that immediately?”

  “Of course. Without a doubt.”

  “What would you do all alone?”

  “I would look for another man I liked as much as you.” She laughed.

  “So now, let’s go on!”

  They continued in silence, but the smile that he couldn’t fathom its meaning remained on her lips. He avoided looking at her. He didn’t realize that, in the meantime, they had reached the Wisla River. A policeman stood at the entrance to the bridge to keep heavy trucks from crossing the unsteady bridge.

  “Could you please tell us where in Warsaw the Jewish committee can be found?” asked Jacob.

  “Of course,” the policeman answered. “On number 6 Twarda Street.” He showed them the direction to take.

  They went in that direction and walked again through wrecked neighborhoods. They stopped passersby to be sure they were going the right way. In some areas, it was difficult to pass, but already there were people clearing away and loading the plaster, stones, and rubble onto trucks. Others, among them women and children, stood by the trucks and searched through the wreckage with sticks to try to find anything of value that might have remained, even nails that they pried out with great effort.

  At last Jacob and Rachel arrived at the Jewish committee building. Here the activity and noise was like that of a beehive. Skeletal people, the remains of the terrible holocaust, went in with their tied bundles and suitcases. Here you could find those who had succeeded in escaping from Russia; some had come out of the bunkers, while others had hidden during the war under an assumed name, a Christian one, or in the forests with the partisans. All of them now faced freedom with joy interspersed with sadness. The space before the booth was crowded. Everyone was looking for something. One needed material help, another was searching for family or friends, and another was asking simply what he should do, where he should go, how to rebuild his wrecked life?

  The walls of the building had turned into one large writing pad. Refugees from the Holocaust, like all prisoners, etched their names on the walls with nails or anything they could find to show those who came after them that they were still alive in the hope that some of their family, friends, or acquaintances would find them. Others, like those who stood before the Wailing Wall, stood for hours and read the names and messages. Jacob also went to the wall with Rachel, and they looked with wonder at what was written there. Their attention was riveted on a middle-aged man whose face showed what he had undergone in a concentration camp. He was on his knees before the wall, and with an arm showing his tattooed numbers, he was writing, “Max Rodman, from Krakov and from Mauthausen concentration camp—survived.” A woman beside him, also with a tattooed number, wrote, “Mary Grossbard, from Radom, survived in a bunker.” She, like the man, was completely absorbed in her task. When she finished, she stood there for a while, examining her words to convince herself they were clear enough for others to read.

  Jacob and Rachel looked at the covered wall for a long time, until it blurred and they could discern nothing.

  Those who had nothing to write with looked around and found the nails and rods others had written with and thrown down in desperation. It was now difficult to find a clean place on the wall.

  Another thin, middle-aged man with a bundle in his hand stood before one of the walls and searched with burning eyes on this incredible gravestone for a sign of family or friends who survived. Perhaps he would find someone. Maybe! There were names that were hard to decipher and took some effort to read. The sheer number of the names blinded the readers, and yet some were finally recognized.

  “You know who survived?” said someone joyfully to his friend who stood beside him, eyes glued to the wall. “Salsha Grayber! Honest! Salsha Grayber! Look! Over here!” He turned so suddenly to his friend that he almost bumped into Jacob and Rachel who stood behind him.

  “What do you say! Where? Where?” His friend looked among the names, and when the name was pointed out to him, he also burst out joyfully, “Salsha! Really! Salsha! Where can we find her?”

  “Let’s ask the committee.”

  But then one of them suddenly said, “Wait, maybe there are more who survived!”

  “I think I’ve read them all… Come on!”

  Now they turned to leave as one of them murmured, “She was a good friend of my wife, blessed be her memory. There was even a kind of romance between us, I swear. What a wonderful woman she was! I always said she would survive all this. She could burn the world down with her blazing black eyes.”

  Rachel and Jacob watched the pale but shining faces of the men as they went to the reception desk with one of them murmuring endlessly, “Salsha! There is no one like her! She survived!”

  “Why aren’t all the names of the survivors written in the books of the committee? Why does everyone have to write their name on the wall?” Jacob asked one of the writers. “Will the wall have enough room for all?”

  “For all the Jews who survived after this war, this wall, without a doubt, will be enough,” one of them answered without looking at the inquirer. “Besides, the committee hasn’t finished their lists. They are writing down the names of all who appear, but many who come here travel on quietly, and this is their first opportunity to find family or friends.
There have been many occurrences like that.” Suddenly he turned to them. “Where do you come from?”

  “From Russia,” answered Jacob.

  “So that means you survived together with your wife. That’s good. A wife today is a treasured possession…”

  “What? A possession?” A man near them smiled when he overheard them. “Since when is a wife a possession?”

  “A man’s not a man without his special time,” joked the first man as he glanced at the beautiful Rachel..

  Jacob didn’t respond to the playful conversation. He became very thoughtful and felt a strong urge to add his name to the others. Sooner or later, he would leave Poland, so let his name appear among the others. After all, he had scratched his name on the walls of a prison in Russia and saw the other prisoners doing the same. What a feeling of strange satisfaction he had felt then, and also when he had written his name on closed cars while being moved with other prisoners.

  “Give me, please, your pen,” he asked a man near him, “and I’ll put my name down, too.”

  The man, who had finished his inscription, gave him his nail.

  “Why are you doing that?” asked Rachel with a smile.

  “I don’t know why,” he answered. “An inner urge, I guess.” And he bent to his task.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A splendid sunset glowed over the wreckage of Warsaw and greeted Jacob when he came out of the Jewish committee building after he had received the help he sought.

  Rays of angry sun rested on the skeletons of the buildings and emphasized the desolation of the bare walls and rubble even more.

  At the corner, among the ruins, women and children sold rolls and cakes. Here and there, buildings that were still standing or had been renovated opened small restaurants, where it was possible to buy some hot food and a glass of vodka.

  Jacob took Rachel to a restaurant, where they ate a good meal. When they had recovered a little, they thought about where to sleep. The committee hadn’t been able to give Jacob a place to rest, but the money he received after registering himself and Rachel was enough to obtain food and lodging for a while. He also received some clothes that the “Joint” (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) sent for needy refugees. He decided to take the clothes and sell them in the market, like other refugees were doing.

  They soon arrived at the market that had arisen during the first days after the war. There was great hubbub here, although one couldn’t exactly call it commerce. Women, men, children, elders, and among them even Russian soldiers, bought and traded, gave and took rags and remnants that in former days no one would ever look at. There were also a few who sold gold, diamonds, clothes in good condition, and other valuable items for high prices. The police didn’t interfere, although trade in gold, diamonds, and liquor was supposed to be illegal. There was no lack of stolen merchandise, and from it came a smell of death, and touching the items brought feelings of unexplainable anxiety and aversion.

  “What are we wandering around the market for?” Rachel asked Jacob, who was walking around and looking curiously at all the objects.

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “We have to sell the clothes and then look for someplace to stay.”

  “Of course! After all, we can’t sleep in a wrecked hole.” Her eyes blinked, and they looked a deeper blue in the fading light. He looked at her eyes for a moment and then said with a smile, “With you, even a wrecked hole is a good place.”

  “I like you, Jacob,” she said charmingly, “but I have no wish to sleep in a hole.”

  “You should have heard what they said to me in the committee,” he told her. “We’ll have a difficult time until we can travel further. Tomorrow, I’m going to call my parents in America and tell them I’m alive and need money. In one of the banks, I have a goodly sum deposited, and I’ll ask them to send me as much as possible so we can exist for a while. Then we’ll see what we can do.”

  “All right, liebling, you’re the boss, and I’d like you to direct things your way, because what I have noticed during the time of our friendship causes me to believe you can cope with any event.”

  “It depends on the event. Let’s hope I’ll measure up to your belief in me, but first we have to sell the clothes we don’t need and get them off our hands. Then we’ll look for shelter.”

  She smiled approvingly, and they then went up to a man who was dealing in clothes that he had hung on his arms. Before they could even say a word, he began to ask the price of what they had to sell and haggle over it. After they had sold the extra clothes, they asked him if he knew of a place to stay for a few nights or even one night.

  “A night’s lodging?” He furrowed his brow. “That’s not an easy thing to find. I doubt if you’ll find it here in Warsaw. All the holes have been filled already. There were grand hotels here once, but this is what is left of our Warsaw today.”

  “Well, what is done is done,” said Rachel with a faint smile.

  “Those who survived have to sleep. Perhaps you know of a suburb or neighborhood near the city where we could rest for a few days?”

  “Near Warsaw, in the suburbs, you can find lodging. Go to Otvotsk, the place people went for their health before the war, if you know where that is.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it.” Jacob remembered he had heard it spoken of when he was still a boy.

  “So!” continued the man. “There are still some untouched houses there. The Germans didn’t have time to wreck everything. The hotels and boarding houses are almost empty there. Going there is the only railroad trip that is not difficult today because, as you know, most of the trips are impossible; people are even killed fighting over tickets, and everybody has the traveling fever.”

  “Where is everybody traveling to?” asked Rachel.

  “Huh! You ask where…” The man laughed. “Chaos has come over the world. This one travels for business, and that one to find a new place to live. Others want to try their luck. Everyone wants to get rich! Hitler starved everyone and stole everything, and everyone wants to become somebody.”

  Rachel didn’t ask any more questions and didn’t respond.

  “It’s no wonder!” said Jacob.

  “Right, it’s no wonder!” The man winked at Jacob. “Anyone who had a brain in his head helped himself to everything he could, and those who were afraid are now selling rags like me. That’s it, my friend, that’s what the war did.”

  After Jacob asked how to get to Otvotsk, they parted happily from the man to go to the railroad station. On the way, they stopped a wagon and asked to be taken quickly to the railroad station to catch the train to Otvotsk.

  “There’s no need to hurry,” said the wagon driver. “Really, you don’t have to rush. Everybody’s rushing! Where are they rushing to? Everybody imagines they’re going somewhere.”

  “Perhaps that’s true,” said Jacob and began to explain to the driver why they wanted to reach Otvotsk before nightfall.

  “I understand! Okay!” And the driver pulled on the reins to hurry his horse. “You’ll get there in time, don’t worry! A car goes out there all the time. After the war, it’s a deserted line, but before that, it used to go out all day and all night with the wounded. Today, everything is dead, destroyed, damn it to hell!”

  They reached the station, and it turned out the train was up and running on an active line, after all. There was, however, no need to stand in line and buy tickets because the conductor sold the tickets on the train. Jacob and Rachel entered a compartment, sat, and waited impatiently for the train to move. The sun hadn’t comple¬tely disappeared yet, but its last rays could be seen in the train’s windows. Passengers stood by the windows and gazed at the ruins. Finally, the train started, but before it left the station, a song accompanied by a guitar sounded through the train.

  “Warshawa, Warshawa…” Somebody sang the popular song of the day in Poland. “I’ll never forget you, you lovely city.”

  The song told of the war, of its sufferings and its destruction.
The man with the guitar entered the compartment where Rachel and Jacob sat. He was a tall, thin man with sunken cheeks and bulging jaws. His long hair almost covered his sad eyes. He was carelessly dressed. He had a lovely voice, and the song accompanied by the guitar sounded sentimental and heartbreaking. Tears came to the eyes of some of the men and women, and they sang the touching words along with him. They all gave him coins, and the singer, while continuing to sing, hurriedly gathered them into the pocket of his black trousers. He didn’t thank them in words but bent his thin body slightly forward.

  The song aroused Jacob and the melody charmed him. He gave the singer more money and asked him to sing some more songs of the war. Only Rachel remained indifferent to the songs, although her lips made some undecipherable movements. The singer left, but his songs resounded in the compartment for a long time. Everyone was silent, listening to the now-faint strains. The rays of the sun still shone in the windows as if the light didn’t want to depart from the train, which was roaring ahead. The green fields and the budding trees lifted men’s hearts and calmed them. Instinctively, Jacob put his arms around Rachel, and the warmth of her body made him feel even better. He looked into her eyes lovingly and searched for comfort in them for his sadness. In his imagination, he lived the life that once was, the world that the song had revived in his heart.

  It was good that sitting next to him was this lovely young woman who had agreed to come with him to Poland and then to America. She would help him overcome his desolation, a feeling that hadn’t left him since he had seen all the destruction. It wasn’t good for a man to be alone, and his thoughts returned to Rachel, whom he had fallen in love with at first sight. However, he thought it was strange that the young woman had attached herself to him and believed in him without knowing who or what he was. Didn’t she ever think he might deceive her? In that case, she wouldn’t be able to return to her home in Russia, or didn’t she care at all? It was very naive on her part, he couldn’t help thinking as he pressed her to him. Why had she agreed to go with him? He had acted naive also to ally himself with her in one moment! What a great responsibility he had undertaken when he convinced her to come with him. And what if his wife and daughter had survived? In that event, he would have to part from Rachel and return to them. To calm himself, he tried to convince himself he wasn’t guilty. He felt so alone! The loneliness and the difficult days he suffered made him look for some comfort, some warmth. No, it couldn’t have happened otherwise. Fate led him to that corner, and she was so lovely, so courageous; he’d never met anyone like her, although he’d met many women. When he saw her there, in the corner of the station house, he had immediately been charmed. She lit a fire in his heart, a flame that couldn’t be quenched.